Let's Eat Grandma

The project of lifelong friends Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth, Let's Eat Grandma’s boundary-breaking pop stems from their intuitive creative connection. Featuring songs they wrote in their early teens, their 2016 debut album, I, Gemini, felt equally inspired by chart-topping acts, Grimm’s fairy tales, and the likes of Björk and Kate Bush. The luminous synth pop of 2018′s acclaimed I'm All Ears, which found Let's Eat Grandma collaborating with cutting-edge producer SOPHIE, was more sophisticated but no less exuberant, while the heartfelt songwriting on 2022′s Two Ribbons reflected the changes and losses that reshaped — but didn’t break — Hollingworth and Walton’s bond. Similarly, the duo’s work on the score to the Netflix series Half Bad: The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself expressed Let's Eat Grandma’s continued creative growth with its eerie fusion of electronic and traditional instrumentation. Growing up in Norwich, U.K., Hollingworth and Walton became best friends at age four, when they bonded during a kindergarten art class. From there, they embarked on creative projects that ranged from building tree houses to making short films and, eventually, music. They made their first song at age ten, and by the time they were 13, they were writing in a rehearsal space in Walton’s home. Taking their name from a joke from the humorous punctuation book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Let's Eat Grandma began recording songs for their album at the local music college when Hollingworth and Walton were 14 and began playing shows soon after. Around this time, they caught the attention of Manchester singer/songwriter Kiran Leonard, who saw their name on a poster for the 2014 Norwich Sound & Vision Festival. The pair soon shared management with Leonard and signed to Transgressive Records, which released a trio of singles — “Deep Six Textbook,” “Eat Shiitake Mushrooms,” and “Rapunzel” — in early 2016. Featuring the duo on every instrument, Let's Eat Grandma’s first full-length, I, Gemini, arrived that June and consisted of songs Hollingworth and Walton wrote several years earlier. Earning critical acclaim for its clever songwriting and whimsical instrumentation, the album reached number 149 on the U.K. charts. After completing their studies at Access Norwich, a creative center specializing in music, Hollingworth and Walton returned in June 2018 with their second album, I'm All Ears, a vibrant mix of synth pop and prog rock that featured production by SOPHIE, the Horrors’ Faris Badwan, and David Wrench. The release was an even bigger success than I, Gemini, reaching number 28 in the U.K. and earning an Ivor Novello nomination as well as Album of the Year at that year’s Q Awards. In the wake of this recognition, however, Walton and Hollingworth’s once-telepathic connection began to fracture. Following the 2019 death of Hollingworth’s boyfriend, musician Billy Clayton, due to a rare type of bone cancer, Let's Eat Grandma canceled all of their U.S. tour dates except their appearance at Coachella. Grieving the changes and losses in their lives — including the death of SOPHIE in 2021 — Hollingworth and Walton gradually healed their relationship by giving each other space and writing songs on their own. In late 2020, Walton contributed the track “I Really Want to Stay at Your House” to the game Cyberpunk 2077. Let's Eat Grandma reunited with Wrench for April 2022′s Two Ribbons, which divided songwriting duties between Walton and Hollingworth and blended synth pop with intimate acoustic ballads. The record peaked at number four on the U.K. Independent Albums chart and number 26 on the U.K. Albums chart. Later that year, the duo issued the single “Give Me a Reason” (which had only been available as a bonus track on the deluxe vinyl edition of Two Ribbons) ahead of their U.K. tour. October 2022 saw the release of Let's Eat Grandma’s moody, electro-acoustic score for the Netflix series Half Bad: The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself. The show’s writer Joe Barton and director Colm McCarthy used songs from the duo’s first album as reference tracks and worked closely with Walton and Hollingworth while creating their adaptation of Sally Green’s book series about warring factions of witches who live amongst humans. In June 2023, The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself was released on vinyl and CD. ~ Heather Phares